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Turnbull government would consider supporting amended version of Kyoto Protocol

Posted by gmarkets on 17 October, 2007

Climate change experts yesterday urged the federal government to immediately ratify the Kyoto Protocol after Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull revealed the government would consider supporting an amended version, wrote Lenore Taylor, national affairs writer, in The Australian Financial Review (11/10/2007, p.7).

An amended version might be ratified: Turnbull told The Australian Financial Review the government might ratify an amended version after international negotiations aimed at expanding its scope for a second commitment period. The Howard government had previously talked up a new international agreement outside the United Nations process after the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ran out in 2012, or an entirely new protocol under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Turnbull had told the AFR that “whether this new agreement is done by amending the Kyoto Protocol or by entering into a new protocol with another name … is a question of process only”.

Clarification asked for: Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd had said Turnbull needed to clarify the government’s stance. “Here we are, virtually on the eve of the election, and the Environment Minister has a thought bubble and says: ‘Maybe, in the future, we might sign a variation of the Kyoto Protocol.’ Well, what variation? How watered down?” he said.